Tell Me A Secret
by MintSauce
Summary: Mickey doesn't know why this sort of intimacy is digging deep under his skin, but more than that, he doesn't know why he doesn't want to rip it out. Part 6 of All The Ways Mandy Finds Out


It's a complete and utter accident that Ian finds out in that yeah, Mickey may have told him, but that didn't mean that he'd meant to. It had been a heat of the moment kind of thing with Ian screaming, "_Just fucking let me in, Mickey!"_ with his eyes all wide and pleading in that way Mickey could feel burning his insides, _"Just tell me one thing about you, let me in!"_

And the words, "I'm blonde," had tumbled out of his mouth before he had time to stop and think. Because sue him, call him a fag, _whatever_, but maybe he wanted to let Ian in. Maybe he wanted to do or say just something that proved to the both of them that this did actually mean something.

_Of course this meant something_.

Anyone could see that, but neither of them ever seemed to think Mickey believed it. When he did. _He did_.

So he'd blurted that out and then he looked up from where he'd been staring at the floor to see Gallagher just fucking gaping at him.

"What?"

Mickey sighed out a long breath. "I'm fucking blonde, okay," he muttered, unable to meet Ian's eyes, "My hair, I dye it."

And he could just see Gallagher weighing up whether or not Mickey was telling the truth. But honestly, why the fuck would he make that up? Who the shit made that sort of thing up? It was a stupid thing to lie about.

And Gallagher just stared at him for too long, making Mickey squirm and want more than anything to take the words back and yet knowing he couldn't do.

Gallagher grinned that shit eating grin that Mickey would never admit he loved. "Always wondered why your pubes weren't so fucking dark as your head," Ian commented.

"Fuck off," Mickey muttered, even though he was grinning back like a goddamn idiot. He couldn't help himself.

And maybe he fell in love with Gallagher a little more because he didn't have to ask why Mickey didn't want to be blonde. He didn't have to ask why a blue eyed and blonde haired Milkovich just couldn't be a thing.

"So what?" Ian asked, "You dye it yourself or does Mandy do it?"

Mickey rolled his eyes, but still mumbled, "Mandy," like it was something to be embarrassed about.

Ian snorted, "I bet you look hot as fuck blonde actually."

And Mickey shoved him with his shoulder because the only thing that he could think to say was, "_We ever get out of Chicago, I'll grow it out for you so you can see."_ Course, he swallowed those words because this conversation had filled his quota of fucking 'faggy' for the day.

Mickey stood nervous in the doorway to his room.

Ian was already spread out on Mickey's bed like he fucking belonged there. All long-limbed and lazy. He had a cigarette trapped between his lips and Mickey watched the flame in the lighter he raised to it flickering, as red as Gallagher's hair.

"What?" Ian asked when he noticed that Mickey was still across the room, raising his eyebrows at him and scratching nonchalantly at his stomach. The movement made his shirt ride up and Mickey caught sight of a flash of abs. He swallowed heavily, dry.

"You feel like doing me a favour?" he asked, not a big fan of beating around the bush and he wanted to wipe that cocky expression off of Ian's face.

Ian sat up on his elbows, watching Mickey far too openly. "Depends what it is," he said, "I'm already gonna suck your cock so I don't know what else you want."

Mickey snorted, rolling his eyes. "You feel like dying me hair?" he asked.

"You want me to dye your hair?" Ian parroted, staring at Mickey like he wasn't sure if he was imagining this or if it was some sort of trick.

Mickey rolled his eyes.

"Yes dumbass, I have a stutter or something?" he asked, moving closer to the bed and taking the cigarette from Ian's lose grip, "Mandy's hanging out with your fuckhead brother and I don't like doing it myself."

He raised his eyebrows at the still dumbfounded expression on Ian's face, trying to look expectant so as to hurry this along and not reveal that he was actually as nervous as fuck.

And that was how they ended up in the bath together, it empty of water and both of them fully clothed, with Ian seated behind Mickey and donned with gloves. Even through the cheap, thin plastic though, the feel of Ian's fingers moving through his hair, nails scratching at his scalp made Mickey's eyes cross and slide closed slightly. He could feel himself relaxing in that way that only Gallagher was ever able to make him.

"This shit fucking stinks," Ian commented when they've moved again, the hair dye in place on Mickey's head now and both of them at different ends of the tub, facing each other. Mickey couldn't say which one of them had pulled the curtain shut around them, but it felt almost like they were in their own little world.

He wouldn't ever say it out loud, but Mickey liked it. He liked it a lot.

"Don't be such a pussy," Mickey snorted, accepting the cigarette Ian handed over and taking a long drag.

He didn't know what this was. He didn't know if sitting in an uncomfortable bath tub, smoking and talking with dye in Mickey's hair made them boyfriends rather than fuck buddies for real. He didn't know if that feeling in his chest because of this scene was a standard thing. But he knew it felt fucking _domestic_ and more than that it felt _normal,_ like it was the sort of thing he could get used to.

Then again, they'd always been something more than just fuck buddies really, hadn't they?

"You hear about that girl who was allergic to hair dye?" Ian asked, as usual not comfortable unless he was saying _something_.

Mickey smirked, "You mean the one who ended up looking like a fucking Chinese puffer fish?"

Ian nodded, smiling. "Yeah that one," he said, "Can you imagine that happening?"

"Yeah because that is just the sort of shit that I think about at night Gallagher," he commented, "My eyes swelling shut and never being able to dye my fucking hair." He snorted out a laugh. "Top of my list of fucking priorities that is."

Gallagher laughed with him, his leg stretching out in a long line of heat against Mickey's thigh. "So what do you think about?"

And yeah, fuck off _no way was he telling that._

"None of your goddamn business," Mickey told him; but Ian grinned like he knew anyway. And _fuck_, he probably did.

"Think you probably need to wash it out now," Ian told him a few minutes later, breaking the not uncomfortable silence that had stretched out between them.

Mickey nodded, his knees cracking as he stood. He didn't feel any sort of need for modesty or shame as he stripped off his clothes, or really just his trousers, socks and underwear since he'd gotten rid of his shirt before they'd started on his hair.

Why would it bother him to be naked in front of Ian though? It wasn't like he hadn't seen it all before. Mickey could never understand people who got embarrassed about nakedness after sleeping with someone, he found it pointless.

It felt like a different sort of intimacy though as Ian sat down on the far edge of the bath, feet braced on the bottom and water running over his bare toes before it swirled down the drain. It felt almost domestic as Ian smoked and talked and watched him wash the dye from his hair.

He didn't know if he minded it though actually, this sort of closeness that was digging deep under his skin. He didn't feel the need to try and shake it loose or carve it out from under his flesh like he'd used to want to.

"You shouldn't gel your hair up so often," Ian commented, his eyes on Mickey as he rubbed a towel across his wet hair, "It looks just as good like that."

And Mickey snorted, but didn't answer because then he'd have to have said, "Okay, I won't so often then," like he sort of maybe wanted to.

It was four months later when it happened and it seemed like such a long time and yet it also seemed to have gone quickly as well.

They were all as high as shit to a degree that Mickey couldn't actually remember how the hell he, Lip, Mandy and of course Ian had found themselves all drinking, getting high and watching crappy movies together; but his memory wasn't so fucked that he didn't know what Mandy was talking about in the morning when she asked.

He didn't know what had prompted the comment, but obviously there had to be some reason for Ian to say, "Course you'd know all about the carpet not matching the drapes, wouldn't you Mick," in a way that was probably supposed to have been quietly, with his head lolling to the side onto Mickey's shoulder.

But everyone heard. Mandy heard.

Then in the morning she stopped him on the way back from the kitchen outside his bedroom door and he could hear Lip snoring away in her room and wondered what his sister thought about Ian passed out still half dressed in Mickey's bed. He wondered what she would have thought if Ian hadn't said what he'd said last night, would it have been anything different?

"He knows you dye your hair," Mandy commented, staring at him in a way that was her obviously trying to understand. He just didn't know exactly what. Not when he didn't know really what she thought she knew.

"Yeah," he admitted, because there was no point really denying it.

Mandy's eyes widened slightly as she carried on staring at him. "No one knows that," she said.

"He does."

Mandy blinked like she hadn't thought it would be that simple of a response. Mickey couldn't say exactly why it was either. "You told him?" she asked, even though the answer was already written all over Mickey's face and they both knew it. "Why?"

Now it was his turn to stare at her, because he knew she wasn't stupid. "You fucking know why, Mandy," he said and then he couldn't say why he didn't care his sister was watching as he turned back into his room.

A part of him felt like he should have done.

Ian mumbled incoherently as Mickey reached the bed and he smirked as he helped the redhead struggle out of the shirt bunched up under his chin like he was a child. He watched Ian fold his long limbs through the arm holes and then as he stretched and curled up again.

He shoved Ian over closer to the wall, climbed onto the bed beside him and didn't complain when Ian's fingers wound into his hair as he drifted off back to sleep. All he really did was wonder if it felt softer, his hair, he hadn't put gel in it for two weeks after all.


End file.
